Film & TV

It would appear that as usual, what's old is new again.   Yet even by modern Hollywood standards, the mere act of humanizing Black domestic characters who were denied lines and had long stood silently in the shadows of white stars in countless iconic films including Father of The Bride, is revolutionary.   While they may appear to simply be masculine and feminine versions of each other:  Both focus on changing attitudes regarding race in American society, and both focus on generational and cultural divides between parents and their offspring.   

With the exception of “Cars 2,” each of Pixar’s sequels has been strong, and “Monsters University” is a winner as well. The movie is presented as a prequel to “Monsters, Inc.” and it avoids the simple repetition that mars many movie franchises. It succeeds by taking already familiar characters and moving them in new and exciting directions. The picture is set years before the events in “Monsters, Inc.” and it explains how Sully and Mike became the extraordinary team that viewers meet in the original film. 

In the documentary God Loves Uganda, director Roger Ross Williams and crew peer into the evangelical crusade to infuse African culture with values of the Christian Right. The film focuses on the works of the International House of Prayer – an evangelical, Christian mission organization based in Kansas City. The International House of Prayer, or (oddly enough, IHOP), is one of the many conservative, American missions organizations working in the African continent. 

With “Before Midnight,” writer-director Richard Linklater and actors Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy continue one of the most interesting projects in film history: a movie franchise based almost entirely on simple conversations between a woman and man. The movie is a sequel to “Before Sunrise” and “Before Sunset,” romantic dramas that introduce viewers to Jesse (Hawke) and Céline (Delpy), a couple who find instant attraction after meeting on a European train. 

Steve McQueen's masterful 12 Years a Slave has already changed history in two major ways: It is the first Hollywood-backed movie on slavery directed by a black filmmaker, and based on Solomon Northup's 1853 oral account, it is the first film ever based on an actual slave narrative. While the former results from the dearth of black directors who are able to get historical dramas funded and distributed by major studios, the latter reveals a more troubling truth. 

Throughout his career, writer-director Guillermo del Toro has capably balanced pulp sensibilities with high-end art, and the result is a filmography that is fanciful and highly enjoyable.  With “Pacific Rim,” Del Toro throws his more serious side out the window to make a big-budget spectacle that pays homage to giant-monster movies like “Godzilla” and “Gamera.” The premise of the film is as silly as one would expect, but that’s OK. Del Toro has fun with the material and, as a result, the audience does, too. 

Director Todd Phillips’ third entry in “The Hangover” franchise is supposed to be his last, and we should be thankful. I say this not because “The Hangover Part III” is particularly bad, but because it is entirely forgettable. Worthwhile sequels should move a franchise’s characters and plotting in new and interesting directions. Although “Part III” is a significant improvement over the horrid “The Hangover Part II,” it doesn’t come close to matching the original film in terms of creativity or laughs. 

Developed as a follow-up to Megumi Sasaki’s award-winning documentary Herb & Dorothy (2008), this quaint film encapsulates an ordinary couple's extraordinary life and incredible contribution to the America’s modern art culture, as the pair’s life as collectors comes to an end. Herbert and Dorothy Vogel were married in 1962. Herb was a postal worker and Dorothy was a librarian at the Brooklyn Public Library. The couple managed to live of off Dorothy’s salary, while using Herb’s salary to build a huge collection of over 4,000 works of art.